Floor 14
by Insomniac Owl
Summary: He was the one who set the building on fire, to make sure he couldn't back down once he'd made his choice. [Sasuke centric]


**Floor 14**

_by Insomniac Owl_

It was cool out, the autumn breezes chasing one another through the park he walked through, chill gusts in their wake. They picked up leaves from the ground, leaves in every imaginable hue of red, yellow, orange - the colors of autumn - and swirled them about in tiny whirlwinds, chasing themselves around his feet and away.

It was almost perfect, he mused. Not quite, but damn close.

The buildings to his right (silver exteriors of high-end apartments) glinted in the sun like silver behemoths. He turned from them, allowing his hair to fall in his face to shield him. He could see the leaves' reflections in the windows, and if he looked closely enough, if he could ignore the glare, he could see himself. Nothing more than a dark shape, wavering just beyond clarity.

The wind swept the hair out of his eyes as he tilted his head back, dark eyes focusing on the sky high above. Leaves carried on their dance up there as well, fluttering in flight and on the backs of the breezes that carried them. A beautiful distraction, because things sucked right now. Things sucked bad.

The dark shape in the building's mirrors turned, heading toward them and growing in clarity, until he could see his jeans, his black jacket, his too-long bangs that swayed across his eyes and back again, caught in the grasp of the wind. His shape grew until it was life-sized, until it reached the walls and passed through them, the door shutting silently behind.

The day was perfect from a meteorologist's standpoint, but when things sucked, forget it. Forget the pretty leaves; forget the stunning beauty of autumn. Things sucked ass.

He rode the elevator to his apartment on Floor 11, which he shared with his brother Itachi. Swinging the door open and tossing the key onto the counter, he was met the familiar sight of the kitchen, the living room, and through the open door to the right, his own room. Clothes were strewn across the floor, a few books, a few cigarette boxes. It was messy, he acknowledged, stepping through the door, knocking aside a few articles of clothing to make room for his body on the bed, but he really didn't care right now.

His body hit the mattress with a soft _thwump_, eyes closed before the springs had even stopped creaking. His fingers found a small box hidden within the sheets and drew it into the open, then feeling for a book of matches he knew he'd thrown somewhere nearby. He stumbled upon it, then, by touch alone, tore out a match and struck it, cracking his eyes only to press the flame to the end of his cigarette.

He inhaled.

Exhaled.

Grey smoke cascaded from his lips, spilling into the air as a vile poison. But _oh_… it felt so wonderful as it poured into his lungs, toxic, nauseating. It burned, but was pleasant. It burned, but _he loved it_. Taking a slow drag on the cigarette, he rose from his bed and walked toward the window, pulling the blinds aside to stare into the sky. He couldn't feel the wind with the window closed, but he could see it in the leaves it carried to the sky and let fall, little skydivers on a suicide jump.

He didn't know what it was about today, about this week, this month, but it sucked. He was on a downward spiral, and sometime soon he would hit bottom. Maybe it was the cigarettes, the drugs, the drinking with Kimimaro that had started him, the skipping school or the days in bed with his head buzzing like rattlesnakes, but he was close to crash-down. He could feel it.

The apartment door swung open in the other room, and he turned, the blinds falling without his fingers to hold them up. He met with an image of Itachi's palm against the door, pushing, and then his brother turned into the kitchen and was lost, swallowed by stainless steel surfaces. He watched his reflection for a few moments, visible in the mirrors created by the steel and the real thing on the opposite wall, then stepped to his door and placed his own palm against it, pushing.

Seclusion was its own form of escape.

o

Kimimaro's slender, almost too-pale fingers swung the neck of a bottle between them. His eyes were locked with Sasuke's, both a bit glazed. A bit drunk.

"What?" Sasuke demanded, pushing his glass away, then thinking better of it and bringing it to his lips again.

Kimimaro's head tilted just a bit, the altered light from the nearby lamp making them glimmer, making them shine. It cast different shadows over his face, and his hands that slid forward until his fingers brushed Sasuke's. "Nothing." He paused, eyes angled down. "You just seem a little… off today, that's all."

A snort found its way past his lips, emerging too loudly in the almost darkness. It was night now, eleven-ish Sasuke saw when he glanced at the clock just above Kimimaro's head (had he really been here that long?) and the only light came from the lamp across the room. This was how they drank, enclosed in shadows and glimmers of light, tiny shards of it like glass.

"Yeah… I should. Things…." A heavy sigh, fingers pressed into his skull, through his hair. "I'm…." But words eluded him, depriving him of the phrase he wanted.

Horrible, awful, tragedy.

_(That is life, isn't it though? This is _normal_, isn't it?)_

"I can't deal with this Kimimaro; I'm slipping, you know? Things just keep getting worse…."

"Look, Sasuke…" Kimimaro murmured, his fingers slipping beneath the boy's to brush the soft skin there. Sasuke looked up, his eyes questioning. They'd had moments like this before, where it was skin on skin and nothing else, moments in darkness (in _secrecy_). It wasn't strange; it was welcome. Needed.

"Yeah?" His voice was hoarse and low, nearly a whisper.

"Just forget it. Forget everything, alright? It's not important right now. It's life. It's normal."

"Yeah…" This time his voice was trembling. "Yeah."

Kimimaro's hand slid out of his, and up his arm to grasp his shoulder. Their lips met somewhere near halfway, Sasuke's eyes slipping shut, and he took Kimimaro's advice, allowing his thoughts to fade as the older boy's tongue pushed into his mouth.

_(All I want is freedom…)_

o

Losing himself was easy - it was the coming back to reality that was difficult. After an injection, a drink, a pill, the sensation (searing ecstasy) of Kimimaro's lips on his, it was a physical pain to return from it. While he was lost, escaping from the world, he was able to forget his life and concentrate on the moment. He was able to lose himself, delude himself. He could think that everything was (going to be) alright, just as it was in the obscuring fog.

"Where did you go last night?" Itachi's voice, from the other side of the room and slightly clumsy with sleep. Sasuke could just make out his reflection in the refrigerator's surface, distorted, off-balance.

It was Saturday morning.

"Kimimaro's," he answered, slowly picking away the crust from his toast.

A pause. "And why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't feel like it. Besides, you were out when I left."

"You could have written a note."

"Yeah." Sasuke lay down his toast, exchanging it for a fresh cigarette. "I think I'm gonna go out for a while, okay?" Itachi didn't ask where, and Sasuke didn't care. He didn't care that Itachi wouldn't have asked the night before. He didn't care that Itachi wouldn't have read a note even if he'd left one. He didn't care that he cared anyway.

_(It hurts, you know?)_

He grabbed his jacket from the counter and shut the door behind him, unable to summon the energy to slam it, unable also, to keep his eyes from focusing through the space as it closed. Itachi had come forward, lifted the toast from the table. When the door shut Sasuke walked away, shoving his hands into his pockets and all thoughts from his head. It was easier not to think, he thought, bringing a matchbook from his pocket and lighting his cigarette. Easier not to dwell on anything, but to float detached.

It was so _hard_ though, because his mind kept lifting snapshots of Itachi's face before his eyes, making him think of how terrible their relationship was. Of how terrible life was right now.

He ended up in the park across the street, the same one he'd been in the day before where he had watched leaves dance across the sky. But today the wind was still and silent, and the leaves lay dead on the ground, successful suicide jumpers. For some unfathomable reason, that only made his spirits lower. His mind was a black pit, and he was in the center of it, wallowing in his own thoughts. He was drowning.

_(And I can't even save myself, can I? Things aren't going to get better.)_

His mind was buzzing, unrelenting.

_(I can't stand it.)_

Sasuke went through five cigarettes and the sun had moved two hours two hours in the sky before he moved. During those two hours and five cigarettes he had seen Itachi emerge from the apartment doors, climb into a car with that weird friend of his, Kisame, and drive away.

The wind had picked up.

He headed into the lobby of the apartment building, watching the people heading past him, hurrying, hurrying, and noting that his own movements were methodical, purposeful, and his mind quiet for once, devoid of any thoughts that normally forced their way to the surface. It was clearer than it had been in months, and _he loved it_. He'd made his decision, and there were no longer any distractions.

The elevator carried him to the third floor first. There was a garbage can on the far side of the hallway, beneath the window with the small crack in the lower left hand corner, and he approached it, fingers digging in his pocket for the matchbook. There were only three left. The match flared to life with a scratchy hiss, and he didn't hesitate, dropping it into the garbage can with as little concern as if it were a scrap of paper.

He didn't wait to see if it caught. The garbage can had been full of discarded newspapers - it would.

This time, the elevator carried him to the fourteenth floor, the floor with the stairs to the roof. The metal ladder was old and slightly rusted, hidden behind a pristine white door (it was almost funny how the management attempted to conceal these imperfections with shiny, modern things. What _losers_, right?), but Sasuke climbed it anyway, ignoring the copper-red of the rust, the rough sandpaper feel of it beneath his fingertips.

The sun met him brightly, the wind racing across the flat rooftop to sweep his clothing away from his body. His fingers fumbled with the zipper of his jacket for a moment, then caught it, drawing it upward and around his neck against the cold.

On floor three downstairs, the whole wall behind the garbage can was aflame. It was spreading. Soon enough Sasuke knew, it would race across the hallway itself, consuming wood, wallpaper, and carpeting with a ravenous hunger. If the rest of the residents were lucky, he mused, stepping to the edge of the roof, someone would see and there would be time to evacuate. Eleven stories after all, was quite a distance to travel.

Looking down the edge of the building, he counted the floors until his eyes found the third window, where he knew, soon enough, flames would shine through the windows.

It was some two minutes later that he heard the first scream.

"Fire!"

He silently willed it to move through the building faster, clasping his hands in his lap and praying. In the distance he could hear sirens.

The fifth floor window exploded.

Three fire trucks arrived on the scene and a number of uniformed men rushed in under Sasuke's watchful eyes. These men would be saviors today, hailed as heroes for pulling people from the flames who would have died otherwise. And yes, even now they were emerging with people in their arms, children, young men and women supported on their shoulders. Sasuke congratulated them, a smile touching his lips.

"Good job," he whispered.

The tenth floor window exploded.

He didn't want them to die, he really didn't. Perhaps it would have been better to drop the match on the thirteenth story, but it was too late now. He could only hope they found their way outside, to safety. The hoses the firefighters were pulling from their trucks wouldn't do any good - the fire was too far along now, and Sasuke was glad. He had no escape now, no way out. He couldn't change his mind and go back, even if he wanted to.

A sharp crack of glass announced the shattering of the fourteenth story window, and there was a great burst of heat just a few yards below him.

This wasn't for the people dragged from the flames. This act was for him, and him alone.

Through the fabric of his jeans he could feel the flames a floor below, separated by a thin layer of wooden framework, plaster, padding and carpet. He rose to his feet, wary of his footing, not wanting to fall to his death quite yet, and stood balanced on the edge with his eyes closed. He would wait, he decided, until the fire reached the roof door and he could see it, until he could feel the heat and touch the flames. Until he no longer had any option of backing down.

He'd dropped that match to ensure completion. He hated the coward in him, and he'd been afraid that at the last moment, as he stood on the precipice and stared down the edge of the building, that the coward would step forward and pull him back. The fire was a safeguard, a means of insurance. And now, as the fire burst through the roof door, hungry and seeking more to devour, his options were gone.

He'd reached the bottom of his own accord.

Forget everything, Kimimaro had said. It's not important right now (or ever); it's life (it's _death_); it's _normal_.

His mind was clear, and for the first time in months, he was happy.

The wind rushed through his hair, finding ways into his clothing to pull them away from his body, and he didn't find it hard to keep his eyes closed. This was better than drugs, better than drinking, better even than Kimimaro. There were no more problems after this.

He was a leaf on the wind....

**finis**


End file.
